


Mother of Monsters

by AmunetMana



Category: Norse Mythology, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angrboda and Loki have a complicated relationship, Angst, F/M, So much angst, mother/child relationship, stolen children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki travels to Jotunheim to disclose the fate of his children to their mother. Things could go smoother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother of Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> A different look at Angrboda and Loki. This is after Odin had locked Fenrir away and Jormungand has been cast down to the seas of Midgard. I don't really kow where to place it in Marvel continuity.
> 
> Angrboda here is an OC of mine, she'll be appearing in 'Kingdom Come' too. she doesn't love Loki. But he doesn't love her either, so that's not particularly important. She does love her children though, and you can bet she'll be at the forefront of Ragnarok for what happens to them.

Loki stood before Angrboda, the two of them silent.

He had rushed there as soon as he could, tripping and falling in a highly unadvisable way down the secret paths between their realms, almost losing himself to the great blackness several more times before he reached Jotunheim. Seeing her now, stood there waiting for him, he wondered sickeningly if letting himself fall wouldn’t have been easier than…this. To be burdened with telling her what, from her face, he knew she already knew.

(how could she not.)

For a moment, they could have been made of stone, not even a breeze stirring to move their clothes. Angrboda was only half dressed, tattered skirt hanging low on her hips and her hair having to do all it could to keep her decent. It was clear she did not care for decency now. Loki didn’t think she’d care for anything ever again. Certainly not him.

He was still dressed in his Asgardian armour, the gilded gold and green fabric seeming almost garish in the muted tones of her home, the leather overdone, the metal gaudy and tasteless. She normally insisted on him discarding his clothing, dressing as a Jotun- ‘this is Jotunheim, and more importantly this is my home. If you’re going to insist upon waltzing in here as you please, you could at least have the decency to look Jotun, and not like an invading prince ready to whisk me back to Asgard as a trophy.’

‘As if I’d want you for a trophy,’ he’d replied, but he had done as she’d asked. Had donned the loincloth and engraved belt, the strange wrist guards and sandals that made up Jotun attire. He had even, to both their shock he thought, stood still as her hands had run across his skin, and he felt the cool spread of blue, the raised lines she traced with her tactile palms.

She always made him change into the form he loathed, but it had not taken him long to realise there were no mirrors in her house. So even she was capable of small mercies.

There were still no mirrors even to this day, but Loki was acutely aware of how they both looked all the same. Like enemies. Like two beings that could never come together, should never come together.

Perhaps that was accurate, in the end. Just look at what had happened because they had done just that.

“Angrboda…” Loki began, speaking her name softer than he ever had before. Her hand swiftly lashed out at the sound of his voice, delivering a resounding slap to the side of his face, making it jerk sideward, his cheek stinging. Loki’s words died in his throat; not even a protest making its way past his lips as he turned back, and took in her expression. Her lips were clamped tightly shut, but she couldn’t disguise the tears that pooled in her eyes, spilling over without invitation or consent across blue cheeks. No matter how much she could bite back the sobs; she could not hide it all.

She still tried however, as she spun around on her heels, skinny arms coming up to wrap around her body in a horrible parody of comfort, isolated and brittle as she rejected Loki with every fibre of her being. Loki could feel it coming from her, more powerful than simple emotion. Angrboda’s strength, the potential magic bubbling beneath her skin had always manifested itself in body language, just as his manifested in words. And every aspect of her body language was screaming at him to go, to disappear, to die, just die, how could you do this how could you let that happeniwillneverforgiveyouneverforgiveyounevernervere v e r-

It crashed over him like ocean waves, freezing him to the bone, as he knew she was right. This was his fault. He should have never told Asgard of their children. Should never have let them near his home.

“Get out,” was all she said to him in the end, and her voice was like broken glass. “I want you to get out, and for me to never see you again.” Her black nails were digging into the skin of her arms, so hard Loki could imagine the skin breaking beneath her grip, blood flowing to paint new lines of loss and despair besides those that marked her birthright.

He contemplated doing as she said. It would be so much easier. He did not want to be there, he did not want to see what his actions had done to her. Angrboda had been vicious since the moment he met her, their dislike mutual and intense from that first collision. They snapped at and insulted each other, and the increasingly frequent intercourse left Loki with deep red welts across his back and arms, and there had been no end of complaints throughout all three of her pregnancies. No end of demands and insults and snarking. Bring me this, bring me that, what are you doing Loki, can’t you see I’m in no state to be doing anything help me out here. It would be easier if that was all there was, if that was all that Loki knew of Angrboda, if he’d never seen another side of her.

If he had never seen her eyes as she gathered her newborn children into her arms. He had never heard her laugh before she had tried to scoop Jormungand into her arms, wrestling with his slippery, legless body until she could hold him close, ignore Loki’s protests that they should find something to put him in, a basin of water or something because the cot was certainly not going to be of any use- and she had laughed. It had sounded like bells. Loki wished desperately that he could forget that. He had never been able to make her laugh like that.

Fenrir and Hela had been no different. Any other mother may have been terrified of giving birth to a wolf, Loki hard certainly been wide–eyed with mute shock, but Angrboda had simply gathered the cub into her arms, more easily than she had done with Jormungand, and had crooned into his pointed ears, rubbing gently across his fur. Loki had left the room for just a moment to fetch fresh water, and had returned to hear the soft syllables of a song drifting through. He couldn’t bring himself to re-enter. Could only watch from the door as his son’s pink tongue extended, and the sound of bells filled the room again as it tickled across her cheek.

Hela had brought no laughter. Not because Angrboda had loved her any less, but because she filled her parents so fully with fear. Fear of what life she might lead, fragile as she was, exposed to the elements and exposed to the scorn of others. It was the first child that had rendered Angrboda silent, and her eyes had turned to Loki, fixing his with a gaze that demanded no halves.

That was the gaze that had led Loki to conquer a realm so his daughter may be safe and loved, may rule those like herself. Angrboda had demanded no halves, and so Loki had not simply made their daughter safe. He had made her a Queen.

He had managed to do so much for Hela; he didn’t know how he could have failed to do so much for his sons. Failed to do anything for their mother, who still stood before him now, shaking as she tried to restrain her feelings, to not let him see more than an inch of her suffering. Loki wondered; if he left, would she howl to the sky? Would she cry until she flooded the world, until she created a new ocean of salt tears to keep her serpent son safe within? Would she run? Run and run until she could go no further, and bury herself in ice and snow, and the crushing guilt of a mother who could do nothing for her children?

He should leave.

He could never leave her like this.

It took him two steps, two long strides across the room. He discarded his coats as he went, the metal decorations clanging as they clattered to the floor. That was the only warning she had, her head beginning to turn as she found herself suddenly pulled into a tight embrace.

It could not be called loving. Loki felt like an attacker as he kept a vice grip around her waist, and she apparently felt the same as she lashed out at him, suddenly screaming and crying, a live wire as she raked her fingers down his face, leaving behind blood and skin turned blue, spitting curses and knocking them both to the ground. Loki could feel ice crystals digging into his cheeks, wincing as tears fell against his skin, turning to ice upon impact. But he refused to loosen his grip, to let her go.

Then suddenly, she stopped. Her entire body went lax, and crashed against Loki’s chest, shaking and shuddering as the sobs escaped now, wailing filling the air in a way Loki had never imagined it could. It was as if the air was saturated with sadness, as though Angrboda’s despair was too great to be contained within her tiny body, and was now escaping in the only way it knew how.

Loki was right, as it turned out.

She did howl.

And he refused to let go, angling her head so it was pressed to the crook of his neck, and he could feel every push of air, every movement of her lips. The names of their children danced upon them, and Loki pressed his eyes shut, and wished, not for the first time, that he could be anyone else, someone who could have avoided bringing this fate crashing down upon all their heads. At one point Angrboda’s hands moved from their tight grip on his arms to pull viciously at her hair, but Loki grabbed them, holding them tightly in his grip.

He wouldn’t let her hurt herself. Not anymore than he had already hurt her. Not any more than she had already allowed herself to be hurt.

Angrboda’s name meant “harbinger of grief”. But, Loki realised as he held her close, feeling the vibrations of her pain through his body as though it was his own, she had clearly never imagined it was her own grief she hailed the coming of.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment~ (:


End file.
